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Monday, 28 March 2016

Review - 'Daredevil', S02E12 - 'The Dark at the End of the Tunnel'

The second season of Daredevil
has contained more than its fair share of fantastic moments, overall.
Honestly, looking back over the season so far, there isn't been a
single weak or disappointing episode – which, on the surface, would
have to make this season something of an improvement over the first,
which did have its occasional weak-points.

Moving
into the season's penultimate episode, though, it's probably a good
time to start thinking about how the season, as a whole, has managed
to come together. In this regard, at least, there do seem to be some
minor issues – issues which become increasingly apparent with this
episode.

Throughout
much of the season, we have had two very distinct story-lines running
side-by-side – one centred around Daredevil, himself, and the other
focused on the Punisher. Much like how the first season split its
focus between Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk, it was clear from the
start that this season was set to be as much an origin story for
Frank Castle, as the Punisher, as it was a continuation of Matt
Murdock's own story. Unlike with Matt Murdock and Wilson Fisk,
though, the shifts in focus between Daredevil and the Punisher, here,
haven't always been as smooth as they could have been. Matt and Fisk
were, after all, set firmly against each other throughout the entire
season – and, shifting focus between the two felt like natural.
Here, though, as the season moved past the initial confrontations
between the two, these separate story-lines began to diverge wildly –
and, it felt as though it was increasingly difficult to find the time
to adequately cover both.

With
this episode, for example, we have what feels like a very decisive
end for the Punisher's 'Blacksmith' story-line – yet, perhaps due
to the fact that the Punisher was (naturally enough, given the show's
title) not really the true focus of this season, it came about in a
manner that felt a rather abrupt, and not entirely satisfying. With
the possibility that Frank Castle may have died in the explosion that
ended the previous episode (a development which was, of course, no
more convincing than the possibility that it was Frank who
anonymously killed Reyes), it was left to Karen to pick up the
pieces.

Following
advice from Mitchell Ellison (Geoffrey Cantor), who seems to have
become her new boss as she stumbles into a new career as an
investigative journalist, Karen resolves to change her story about
the botched sting, and the later cover-up, into a new story about
Frank Castle, himself – one intended to show the complex individual
he truly is, rather than the villainous figure he has been portrayed
as. In order to do this, Karen reaches out to the only other person
show knows of who might truly understand Frank Castle – Colonel Ray
Schoonover (Clancy Brown), under whom Frank served in his time in the
military.

During
the interview, though, Karen finds her life unexpectedly in danger,
once more, when she is able to piece together enough clues to realise
that Schoonover is actually the mysterious 'Blacksmith' that Frank
has been hunting – and, who had previously tied to have both her,
and Frank, killed. But, of course, Frank is still very much alive –
and, he has been able to piece together the same information (after
his encounter with some other former squad-mates in the previous
episode). So, it's not long until the Punisher makes another
appearance.

While
I do have to admit that I might very well be in the minority, here,
there was something a little disappointing about having this phase
of the Punisher's story-line be told from Karen's perspective.
Karen's discovery of Blacksmith's true identity was as much a case of
dumb luck as it was deductive reasoning. Given that we had only met
Colonel Schoonover once before, during Frank's trial, this revelation
also seemed to come entirely out of nowhere. This whole sequence
simply struck me as too abrupt to be entirely satisfying.

Similarly,
the rapidly escalating tension between Elektra and Stick finally
received some focus, now that it appears to have reached the point of
out-right violence – but, even with the flash-backs we are given in
this episode, it all still comes across as a bit muddled. Also, while
the revelation that places Elektra at the centre of the conflict with
the Hand has the potential to be very interesting, there still needs
to be more information given to the audience, on that front. For the
moment, the whole situation still feels a little confusing.

I do
have to admit that the girl that they managed to find the play the
young Elektra in these flash-back was scenes (Lily Chee) was
fantastic, though. She definitely deserved more screen-time than the
handful of scenes she received, here. The sense of a very genuine
bond developing between Stick and Elektra during these scenes was
also done very well.

Despite
these issues, though, this was still a very entertaining episode.
Matt's desperate attack on the Hand, in order to rescue Stick after
the Hand got hold of him, was pretty great. With the Hand's warriors
finally seeming to catch on to the fact that Matt couldn't actually
see or hear them, and was only able to fight by listening for the
sound of their weapons, there was even a moment of genuine tension
added to this encounter as they changed their tactics to fight
unarmed. Even if it didn't last, it was still pretty great to see the
hero placed at a genuine disadvantage, for a little while, due to the
villains actually being allowed to employ clever tactics – it feels
as though this sort of thing simply doesn't happen often enough.

Also,
while it is a little disappointing that Foggy has started to feel
almost entirely superfluous at this point in the season, it is still
very interesting to see the deterioration of both Matt and Foggy's
business partnership, and their friendship, continue to play out in
such a tragically realistic way, here. There might have only been a
single scene devoted to that, in this episode, but it was still a
pretty great one.

With
the Punisher's story-line being over, whatever role he has to play in
the season finale is likely to have the feel of an epilogue, as it
seems pretty clear that the final episode will be focused entirely on
the Hand. While this story-line is certain to resolve itself with
some more of the show's typically fantastic action sequences,
hopefully there will also be time for more information regarding
Elektra's new-found role in the conflict – because, it still feels
as though there definitely needs to be some more elaboration on that.